Rosarito and the Guadalupe Valley

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Stephen Fischer Photography

The next morning we got up early and visited a the local cemetery, hoping to capture it under the golden light, but ended up being limited to overcast skies. Despite the poor light, it was a worthy experience, seeing first hand how the departed are buried. Apparently cemetery land is designated by the government, and open to anyone to create a gravesite without any sort of coordination or plan, and no official caretaker. Most of the sites were not in very good condition, and with a signficant amount of litter strewn about, some potentialy coming from a nearby squatter's camp. Families have limited resources, so they try to improvise with what they have in marking a site of a loved one. The result is a hodge podge of grave sites that don't survive the years so well, and in some cases erosion of the land tends to wash away what was affectionally created some time before. Those with more money and forethought create a crypt with concrete in order to better preserve their memories.

After breakfast we explored some more rural inland areas including a horse ranch. Our timing was not so good with the ranch, as the folks operating it were not present during our visit due to some unplanned situation. So we ended up wandering around on our own in a fruitless attempt in trying to come up with interesting compositions in the mid-day sun. That best photo-ops being some farmers at a rural farm along the way picking statice, a popular purple accompanyment used in floral arrangements.

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